


The Division of Blood

by orphan_account



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Chapter 1: Trevor is gone.The De Santa’s that hated him are happy.The De Santa’s that remember him fondly struggle to process.Chapter 2: Michael is gone.The kids aren’t alright, but somehow, they might be.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write a little something about my least favourite ending of GTAV! The game is fucking good and I always wondered how the De Santa’s processed not having that whirlwind of terror around

The sound of screeching tires made the De Santa family stand from the dining room table, abandoning their take out dinner in favour of the excitement. 

Tracey, Jimmy, and Amanda did nothing but watch as an injured and broken Michael stumbled through the front doors. A limo in his step, a gash on his forehead, and if Amanda payed close enough attention, she could have seen the evidence of tears on his face. 

“Daddy?” Tracey asked, taking a step forward. 

Michael didn’t respond, practically looking through his daughter for a moment, before shaking his head. He took three big steps forward and grabbed Amanda with two firm hands on her face, kissing her like it was the first time all over again. Amanda couldn’t help how she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around the tree trunk of her husband’s torso, remembering the days of her just getting off her shift and making out with Michael behind the club. 

“Ewww, dad, the fuck is up?” Jimmy shielded his eyes from the display of romance. 

“Don’t say fuck, son.” Michael spoke when he finally pulled himself away from the beautiful disaster that was his wife. 

“What’s going on?” Amanda pulled her husband’s focus back to her with soft hands on his chest, her fingers tapping in rhythm. 

“Kids, go to your rooms.” Michael said, and the De Santa children didn’t argue, for once. 

Michael was surprised to see his wife hadn’t forgotten her old ways as she set him up on the couch and returned with two cold beers in her hand. She snuggled close to him in a way they hadn’t snuggled in years. 

“What-“ Amanda started, but Michael stopped her with a waving hand. 

“Trevor ain’t gonna be a problem anymore.”

Amanda held her breath. 

Maybe she should’ve felt sad. Maybe remorseful. She remembered Trevor in all his nasty ways, sure, but there were other ways to remember Trevor too. 

Like the day Trevor has burst in the front door, a young Tracey cradled in his arms, all because she had fallen off her bike and scraped her knee, making a show of getting the first aid kit as if she had been shot on a heist. Or when Michael and herself were at the wits end with two toddlers in the house, and how Trevor graciously offered to watch the “little shits” while they went out for some fun. Amanda had been hesitant, but when they returned home in the early hours of the morning, the found her children clasped onto either side of the man and his rough tattooed arms around each of them, surrounded with toys and evidence of fun. When the kids had woken up, they begged their parents to let Uncle Trevor take care of them more often. 

Trevor would ride or die, even for herself, despite being the piece of ass that stole his brother away; he proved that when a man began stalking her after seeing her dance. Trevor had bit his fingers clean off, and when the man had been stupid enough to try it with her one more time, Trevor gouged his eyes out with his bare hands. 

But those brief moments of sweetness Trevor displayed were nothing compared to the havoc he had brought upon her family. 

“Good fuckin’ riddance.” Amanda huffed under her breath, pulling Michael against her, cradling him like a wounded child. His head rested upon her chest as she leaned back, her arms tight around him.

“The kids will be crushed.” Michael sighed, resting his chin upon her ample breast to look up at her. 

“They’ll live, babe.” Amanda rubbed his back.

Michael lifted his head and kissed his wife. It was the first night in many that they shared intimacy in their bed.  
———  
The next morning, Jimmy and Tracey went into the dining room to see a full homemade breakfast on the table. Tracey stopped in the doorway while Jimmy happily began piling up a plate with pancakes, his wake and bake in full motion. 

Tracey stared at the back of her mother’s head. She may not be the brightest bulb in the box, and admittedly she played it up so her parents wouldn’t expect too much from her, but Tracey knew her mother only cooked when something bad was coming. 

Her dad came up from behind her, wrapped an arm over her shoulder, and lead Tracey to the table. 

“Sit down, sweetheart.” He pat her shoulder before pulling out the chair, and Tracey took the place, with a wary look in her eyes. 

Michael went the short distance to the kitchen, wrapping his arms around Amanda from behind and swaying her softly as she finished scrambling the eggs.

“The fuck is going on? Mom only cooks when there’s something wrong.” Tracey whispered as she leaned over the table to Jimmy. 

“They’re probably gonna have another baby, who cares?” Jimmy was far too deep in syrup drenched pancakes to care what news was coming. 

When all four were seated at the table, circling a truly complete breakfast, it was only then that Michael spoke. 

“I have news about,” Michael took a breath and clenched his teeth “, your Uncle Trevor.”

Now that made Jimmy stop. He put down his silverware and sat up straight, giving Tracey a look. Tracey took a deep breath at her brother, then looked to her dad. 

“He... passed away.” Michael stated it like it was a fact. No sadness, no grief, no loss. 

“No way.” Tracey gasped, one hand over her mouth and the other resting over her heart.

“What? How!?” Jimmy looked around, seeking anything to anchor him in the moment. 

Michael took a swig of orange juice and swished it in his mouth. He was stalling. 

The silence continued for beats after Michael had swallowed and he looked to Amanda for help. Tracey didn’t allow the rescue to come. 

“Exactly how did he die, dad.” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand.

“You know Trevor,” Amanda piped up “, he was always getting into something crazy-“

“Uncle Trevor.” Tracey corrected. 

The way Michael and Amanda exchanges looks, Tracey knew. 

“You did it. You’re the reason he’s dead.” Tracey, who was the only one without food on her plate, let her head fall into her hands. 

“Sweetie, Trevor wanted to hurt every one of us.” Michael sighed, reaching to grab his daughter’s hand. He winced when she pulled herself out of his reach. 

“That’s BULLSHIT, dad!” Tracey found herself screaming. Amanda looked taken aback, her eyes flicking between her raging daughter and defeated husband.

“That’s right, it is bullshit! You didn’t even deny that you did it!” Jimmy stood up too. Tracey and Jimmy were always stronger when they worked together. 

“I did what I HAD to do for this FAMILY. Show a little fuckin’ respect!” Michael yelled back, but he had already lost. With a shared look to one another, Jimmy and Tracey walked away from the table.  
———

As they reached the second floor, Tracey was sure Jimmy would storm off into his room. Instead, he followed her into her room and slammed her door for good measure. He wanted his parents to know just how pissed he was. 

“Uncle T...” Jimmy took a seat in Tracey’s desk chair and rubbed his face. 

“He just always seemed... invincible.” Tracey allowed herself to cry, and she wanted to weep, but she remained stoic as her tears fell. 

A moment of silence passed as the two children felt their grief bubble up within them. 

“Do you really think he would’ve hurt us?” Jimmy asked. 

“No way,” Tracey shook her head “, when him and dad came to get me at fame or shame and he saw that guy grinding on me, he lost it. Went all world wrestling and used a folding chair on a guy.”

“Classic T.” 

They shared a laugh. 

“Trevor loved us, and the way he teamed up with dad after what we did to him... there was no way we were in his line of fire. Maybe dad, sure, but Uncle Trevor still has a soft spot for us.”

Another moment of silence. Jimmy stood and sat next to Tracey on the bed, lying flat to stare at the ceiling.

“Remember when T beat the shit out of Christina Forslittle’s dad when she wouldn’t stop pulling your pigtails?” Jimmy asked. Tracey let out a soft laugh. 

“I didn’t think you remembered that.”

“I remember a lot of moments with Uncle T.” Jimmy spoke softly, in a way she had never heard him speak before. 

“Uncle Trevor taught me how to kick a guy in the balls just right so his testicles would burst.” Tracey leaned back and laid beside her brother, looking at the same spot on the ceiling.

“T taught me how to talk shit.”

“How about when he would throw us over his shoulders and run around the backyard? He was always a lot stronger than dad.”

“Or building snow forts and having snow ball wars, us versus Uncle T and dad. He always let us win.”

“He taught both of us how to ride bikes, dad and mom were too busy.”

The De Santa children were the only ones in the family that felt like a key part of their life was missing. Tracey held her chest, hoping to quell the aching pain that resided there, heavy like a rock. 

“How do you think he died, how dad did it?” Jimmy asked. 

Tracey sat up and grabbed her phone. She wasn’t a stranger to the life Trevor liked to lead and knew his death would make the news in this city. With a quick EyeFinder search of his name, the first link that came up provided the answers they sought. 

‘Meth & Arms Peddled Cleansed by Fire’

As Tracey read the details, she felt herself grow sick. She threw her phone down on the bed and leaned over, emptying stomach acid and remnants of last night’s dinner into her trash can. Jimmy, in a moment of kindness, held her hair from the accosting liquid until Tracey could breathe. 

Jimmy then grabbed her phone and read the details. More desensitized than Tracey, he didn’t throw up, but the weight in his throat grew heavier. 

“Burned alive?”

“His car was t-boned, they found a bullet hole in the ground, someone shot to light the gas.” Tracey wiped her mouth clear of acid and laid back down, hoping the world would stop spinning. 

“Dad hit his truck,” Jimmy seethed “, and then dad set him on fire.”

“What an awful way to go. Oh, Uncle Trevor.” Tracey began to weep. 

Jimmy reaches out and took his sister’s hand. She squeezed it back, not planning on letting go until her pain finally passed. 

“We can’t trust dad anymore... we can’t trust Michael anymore.” Jimmy huffed. 

Tracey looked to her brother; this was the first time in years she had seen a human side to him. He wasn’t the dirty, lazy, stupid idiot she had seen him as for years. Now, he was just her brother, and the only person she could rely on in the bloodline. 

“Amanda is just as happy that Trevor is gone. Can’t trust her either.” Tracey agreed. 

“Think there’ll be a funeral? A service, anything?”

“If there isn’t, we’re going to plan it.”


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a week since the De Santa’s had placed their leading male six feet under. 

Tracey has waited all day before the service, and during with woeful looks to the cemetery entrance, for the one man she would have loved to be there. The one man she needed to be there. Tracey found herself let down as the burial came to a close, Michael’s name chiseled within a fine piece of marble, and the man was no where to be found. 

On the way back to the house, Tracey looked at the window. She had almost forgotten the man, her dearest Uncle Trevor, had already mourned Michael once. For nine years, he mourned. Maybe... maybe it was easier for him now. She hoped it was, she hoped Trevor was doing well. 

When a large sum of money residing in the millions hit her bank account, her heart nearly stopped. She ran from her room to tell Jimmy, but he had run out too, with a similar set of numbers in his bank. They practically collided in the hallway. 

The siblings went downstairs to ask their mom about it, but she was passed out on the couch. Mascara stains on her cheeks and a spilt bottle of wine on the floor. Amanda hasn’t been lucid since she heard of her husband’s death. It was easier to wake a corpse than to bother her. It was better this way, if she wasn’t passed out, she was weeping loudly like a wounded cat.

So instead of trying to wake her from her drunken slumber, they met in the kitchen and set themselves up with some cereal.

“You think it was T?” Jimmy asked, staring at the bank app upon his phone. 

“I don’t know... do you remember the other guy dad mentioned, the nerdy guy with the limp? Could’ve been him too.” Tracey scratched her head, the name dancing on the tip of her tongue before she conceded that it didn’t matter. 

“Just... where did this money come from?” Jimmy huffed. 

“Dad was in the life, idiot, he did a job and the money was sent to us. That’s why I think it’s Uncle Trevor. He would want us to be set.”

They shared a moment of silence, spoons clinking in bowls of cereal they really had no intention of eating. With five million dollars respectively, they’d never have to eat from the kitchen cupboards again. 

“I’m gonna go see him.” Tracey piped up, choosing your dump her half hearted bowl of cereal into the garbage disposal. 

“T?”

“Yeah, you wanna come?”

Jimmy thought on it, then shook his head. 

“I’m not ready to talk about dad.”

Tracey nodded and offered a smile. It’s funny, it took a parent dying for them to get along. 

“Call me when you get to Sandy Shores, let me know you’re alright.” Jimmy tossed it over his shoulder as Tracey grabbed the keys to Michael’s old car, gifted to her in the will. 

“Sure thing, bro.”  
———  
Tracey has never been out to Sandy Shores before and she only knew Trevor lived there when she had heard her parents dreaming about the psycho from the desert. She knew the address from sheer curiosity, learning Trevor’s place of residence after looking through her father’s notebook and seeing the scribbles address beside his phone number. It would be like dad to keep a hard copy, despite having the most recent smart phone. 

The pavement turned to dirt roads and she knew she was getting close. Tracey called Jimmy, letting him know she survived the few hours of driving without an incident, and assuring him she would say hello to Trevor for him. 

The sun sat high in the sky, beating down heat upon the desert with vast indifference. She wasn’t sure for a moment if she was in the right area, but then she saw the telltale truck with a teddy bear strapped to the front. Bingo. 

The steps from the parked car to the trailer door was enough to make her feel like she was melting. Under the shade of the canopy, she took a breath before raising her fist to knock. Then, Tracey hesitated. 

Why was she so nervous?

Tracey shook it off and knocked, taking a step back to smooth out her tank top before shoving her hands in the pockets of her denim daisy dukes. She heard grumbling and stumbling from beyond the metal entrance, and when it flung open she felt relief in her heart. 

Trevor was here, still alive, and hopefully still getting on. 

“The fuck you- oh, hey sweetie.” Trevor rubbed his bloodshot eyes, leaning against the doorframe. 

“Hey Uncle T... how are you holding up?” Tracey’s smile was soft and didn’t reach her eyes. She watched Trevor shrug, lifting his hands in a weighing scale type motion. 

“I’m makin’ it kid... what about you, huh?”

“It... hurts. A lot. It really hurts, Trevor.” 

Trevor nodded, taking a step onto the deck, the little sliver of messy disorganization leaving her line of sight as the door swung closed. 

Trevor reached out his arms and Tracey walked right in. He clasped his arms high around her back. She had heard many things about Trevor being a pervy man, but she had never felt that way around him before, and definitely not now with how he rested his chin atop her head. 

“I know, Trace, I know.”

They stayed like that for a time, before Trevor pat her back as a signal to break away. She did, her hands folding, clasped in front of her as she looked up at the tattooed and scarred man. 

“I’d invite ya in but,” Trevor scratched his head while looking at his door “, it’s a real mess.”

“That’s alright.”

“But we can go somewhere. A bar or somethin’.”

“I’m not old enough-“

“This is Sandy Shores, sweetie, ain’t no one gonna card ya here.”  
———  
They settled for a hole in the wall bar. Trevor had been right, no one dared to card her. Tracey has to wonder if it was because Sandy Shores didn’t care, or if it was because of whose company she held. Trevor had a way of scaring off undesirables... and desirables. 

Trevor didn’t encourage her to drink, but promised ‘not to say nothin’ if she grabbed something. So Tracey did, ordering some fancy microbrew that was new on the menu. 

At first, it was awkward. It wasn’t like all those years ago, when Trevor allowed Tracey to cover his face in cheap makeup and play tea party. It wasn’t talking to stuffed animals or being the vicious dragon that guarded the princess while her dad, the valiant knight, tried to rescue her. 

No, this was a grown up meeting. But to Trevor, she was still that little baby, all swaddled up, smiling with toothless gums; despite the image of a young lady sipping away at a beer in front of her. 

“We really missed you.” Tracey was the first one to open the floor. 

“I missed you too, sweetheart. Jimmy too, miss the hell out of that kid.” Trevor sucked back a gulp of cheap brew. 

Tracey smiled, looking into her beer. 

“He says hi. He would’ve come, but he’s having a rough time.”

“He was a daddy’s boy, always was.” Trevor said, not a hint of malice in his voice. 

“And me?” Tracey asked. 

“Fuck kid, you were glued to me. You were Uncle Trevor’s girl and your dad hated me for it. I could get you to stop crying and fussing at the drop of a coin.”

“He tried to tell us you were dead,” Tracey spoke softly “, I didn’t believe it when he told me. A couple bullets couldn’t kill Uncle T.”

Trevor laughed behind closed lips.

“How’s your mom holdin’ up?” Trevor asked. 

“She’s not. When she isn’t hyperventilating and crying, she’s drinking or passed out from drinking. Sometimes it feels like it’s only me and Jimmy left, you know?”

“I know,” Trevor sighed “, better than most, sweetheart.”

Tracey cocked her head, eyes trained on the arm baring a memorial tattoo. Trevor twisted his arm to offer up a better view. With a tentative hand, she traced along the ink of her dad’s name, feeling the faint scar tissue that resided there. 

“Got this the first time your dad decided to die on me.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“S’not your fault.”

“Still... I’m sorry it happened. And then when you got him back...” Tracey trailed off, her hand still resting upon his tattoo. Trevor lifted a hand and placed it on top of her own, a soft grasp to say the slate of that was wiped clean. 

“Is it easier,” Tracey spoke again “, the second time around?”

“No, it’s even harder than the first.”

Tracey squeezed his arm before letting Trevor loose. 

“I want one.”

“A memorial tattoo for your dad?”

“Yeah.”

“When you’re ready, I’ll take ya.”

Tracey took the smile Trevor offered her before pulling out her phone. With a few taps, she placed her phone on the table and slid it to Trevor. 

“You know anything about this?” She asked. 

Trevor looked, he froze, then he nodded. 

“The name Lester ring a bell for ya?”

“Lester! That’s the guy, the dorky dude with the cane.”

“That’s the one,” Trevor leaned in closer “, you ain’t a kid anymore, so let me tell you where it came from. Your dad and I hit UD.” His voice was a low whisper. 

Tracey’s eyes widened. She had heard about it on the news, four tonnes of gold practically given away. She hadn’t realized her dad was so talented at what he did. 

“When L heard what had happened to your dad, he asked me what to do with his cut. I said give it to you guys. Five for each kid and ten for your mom.” Trevor wiped his hands; a signal that there was nothing else to be said. 

“Thanks.”

“I know it doesn’t... you know, it doesn’t bring him back or anything. But I don’t want to see you guys struggle. You’re like the only family I’d care to have.” With that, Trevor finished his beer. Tracey held a hand over her heart. 

“I know mom gives you a hard time, but don’t be a stranger. You can come around the house if you want some company, or call me or Jimmy to come do stuff with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Trevor nodded. 

“Want me to give you a ride home,” Trevor asked “, take the car and I can come in and see Jimbo?” 

“I’d really like that, Trev.”


End file.
